


There's a Thread You Follow

by Quercusrobur



Series: Sun In My Sky [5]
Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Porn with Feelings, Timey-Wimey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-11
Updated: 2019-01-11
Packaged: 2019-10-03 13:24:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17284856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quercusrobur/pseuds/Quercusrobur
Summary: There is something expansive building in him, a shockwave set off by a spark of hope, leaving behind a hollowness at the centre. What comes next he doesn't know. When the Doctor is gone he'll be alone again, and Jack isn't sure anything will be better for this reprieve.Part of a series but can be read stand-alone, as a story of how Jack gets his vortex manipulator back and finds out the Doctor doesn't die at Lake Silencio.





	There's a Thread You Follow

**Author's Note:**

> _Takes place after Chapter 2 of A Long Shadow Cast for Jack (before the events of Fire the Crucible), and after The Day of the Doctor (and Crucible and Shadow, in this series), for the Doctor._

“Jack! I've got - look, I don't think it's too much to ask that I shouldn't have to say this _every time I see you_ , but put some clothes on!”

After an unusually long moment of dumbfounded staring, Jack shakes his head as if to clear it and hisses, “I'm at church!”

“Ohhh. Carry on, then.”

“Doctor, I don’t want to sound like a broken record either, but you can't be here. What the hell do you think you're doing?”

“Language, Captain, you're at church! I've got this.” He holds up the twin to the vortex manipulator on Jack's wrist; or rather, its earlier self. “When did I give it back to you?”

Jack groans, rubbing his forehead as if he has a headache. “ _That's_ all?”

“Well I didn't want to get it wrong,” the Doctor says defensively, scowling.

Already pushing buttons for the query, Jack rolls his eyes. “Wouldn't _be_ wrong, would it.”

“Well, no, but how many times have you seen me popping in to ask if it's early enough yet?”

Grinning darkly, Jack concedes, “True, I haven't heard that excuse yet; alright. Learned your lesson about popping in randomly?”

“Not at all!” says the Doctor cheerfully.

Jack reads out a string of coordinates and says, “Now shoo, I'm serious, you can't be seen here.”

The Doctor nods understandingly. “Too many clothes.”

“Any other day I'd be happy to help with that. Go!”

\-----

Not naked this time, Jack is still unflatteringly surprised to see him. The Doctor hasn't managed to drop in on anything interesting at all this time, apparently; Jack is standing in a doorway, toothbrush in his mouth, shirt on hanger in one hand, eyes wide. Holding his free hand up in a _wait a second_ gesture, he mumbles something to the same effect and disappears through the doorway.

All the better for poking around, really. Although there are immense portions of Jack's life with which the Doctor has had no interaction, he tries to find clues to when this is for Jack. There is very little to be found.

Drab and dingy pretty well describes what the Doctor can see of the flat, which is unusual for Jack. Two chairs, neither of which seem to invite ease; a sparsely populated bookshelf, most of whose inhabitants are not books at all but soulless data sticks; and half behind the TARDIS a window, filmed for privacy, which lets in a weak yellowish light. A black shirt is slung over the back of one chair, boots untidily beside it. Where are the little keepsakes, the oddities discovered in his travels, kept for a time to let memories settle in securely? Where are the pictures? He usually likes to keep a few about. Never flamboyant in his decorating, still this is unusually austere. Recently arrived, after some catastrophe? But his scent is well settled in.

The Doctor is just pulling out his glasses to peer at the odd branching artwork on the wall, more organic than fractal, when Jack reappears. He looks like he's washed his face and is pulling _on_ a shirt over his vest, which is… not the direction the Doctor has come to expect that to go. Anxiety is pouring off him in nearly palpable waves; the Doctor tucks his glasses back into his coat, suddenly concerned. These _are_ the coordinates Jack gave him -!

“You’ve come to say goodbye?” the present Jack asks, stopped stiffly two paces beyond the doorway.

Startled, the Doctor is, perhaps, slightly incautious. “Certainly not! What in the world gave you that idea?” He has been having a great deal of fun recently, in fact, since redeeming the worst day of his life; he'll have to say goodbye someday, but not yet, not ever yet.

Jack does not look reassured. “You said you would,” he says, eyes deep and devouring. “You promised I'd see you again, before you had to go.”

“Oh,” the Doctor says, memory tugging. “No, I'm past that - wait,” his hand flies to his mouth as Jack's eyes go wide. “Erm. Spoilers?”

Two long strides and Jack is staring at him, silent, searching, hand rising tentatively to frame the Doctor's face. “Past it, truly?”

Leaning into the welcome warmth of his lover's hand, the Doctor says dejectedly, “I'm awful at this. How do you do it? Not that I'm not just as glad… Oh, Jack.” He sighs, thinking of all he had put this man through, back when he was running from the spectre of that death. “When is this for you?”

“Last time I saw you, you rescued me from a noose.”

Which narrows it down quite well, even if it was a very long time and many, many deaths ago. The Doctor winces. “That far back? I'm sorry, Jack.”

“I’m not,” Jack says quietly, fervently. “First good news I've had in decades.” The anxiety is fading, or maybe it was dread; one side of Jack's mouth is creeping upward helplessly. “You utter bastard.”

“I can't be as bad as all that, you like me most of the time,” the Doctor opines, accustomed to the random outbursts of mild abuse; despite it, Jack’s hand is gentle against his cheek.

“You’re all dressed up, I thought… I don’t know what I thought. Dressed up for a funeral.” He closes his eyes, but there is raw pain in his voice when he says, “There’s no joy in life when I have to fear the next time I see you, Doctor.”

His next breath feels like it is full of broken glass. The Doctor tugs this younger version of his Captain to him, pulls his head against his shoulder, holds on tight. “Don’t tell me that, when you see me next,” he whispers. “I would have run and never looked back.”

Jack tenses, the hand running up and down the Doctor’s back under his coat stilling. “But now?”

“I’ll always come back,” the Doctor promises, breathing out the broken glass, breathing in the scent of his lover’s hair, the effervescent tingle of artron energy that suffuses Jack tickling his nose. “I won’t stop until you tell me to.” Less of a promise than a simple fact, but no need to compound his offense.

“What a tangled web we weave…” Sighing, Jack relaxes against him, his hand resuming its motion. “Well. Seize the day, I always say.” He steps back carefully, pulling the Doctor with him, two steps, three, then abruptly drops into one of the chairs, tugging the Doctor down onto his lap.

“Jack!” the Doctor laughs, surprised.

His lover smiles up at him. “I’m here, you’re here; not in a hurry, are you?” He is pushing the Doctor’s coat off his shoulders slowly, with clear enjoyment, as if he were unwrapping a present. “I love the new look. Very classic.”

“No, no hurry,” the Doctor says as he pulls his arms out of the sleeves, smiling helplessly. Time will shape him, hone him, break him and remake him, but Jack is always, unassailably, himself. “Wait!” he says, remembering just before Jack tosses his coat to the other chair to join the shirt already there. “I actually had a reason for coming - you’re such a distraction -” He digs awkwardly in his pocket and triumphantly pulls out Jack’s vortex manipulator. “There we are! I believe this is yours.”

“Is it,” Jack breathes, expression blank in surprise. He takes it with careful hands, almost reverent, examining it closely for signs of tampering.

“It works,” the Doctor offers.

“It _does_?” An incredulous grin breaks across Jack's face as he straps it onto his wrist. “Gods, I've missed that. Feel naked without something there, and not in a fun way.” He eyes the Doctor speculatively. “You going to leave it working this time?”

It hadn’t occurred to him not to, in truth. He had failed to appreciate the significance of its reappearance long ago, and had slid so quickly into Jack’s future it had never seemed odd for him to have his freedom. He is no longer the man who would make self-righteous pretenses to _responsibility_ , in any case. “Yes,” he says, warming his hands against Jack’s chest. “We’ll make sure it’s all proper before I go.”

“Ah.” Jack nods seriously as he returns his hands to more useful activity, sliding them slowly up the Doctor’s thighs to his hips, fingers slipping beneath his waistcoat. “You have more important things to do right now?” he suggests, voice gone deep and smooth.

“Well,” the Doctor says, toying with the shirt buttons Jack had never got around to doing up, “you looked as though you were unwrapping a present, just there; I shouldn’t like to be accused of stealing it away.”

“You are apparently adorable, in the future.”

“I am never _adorable_ ,” the Doctor insists huffily; Jack smiles. “It’s a long time, Jack,” he warns. “It’s a long time until…” What had he said, so long ago?

“I know it is,” his lover says wistfully. “So let’s enjoy today.”

 _Though I had been warned_. “I’m not… kind,” he says, not sure how much he can or should give away. “Not to you, not to anything else with the bad luck to be in my way. I was mad with fear and guilt, and you… I’m sorry. It’s a long time until your faith in me is redeemed.”

“It’s alright,” Jack murmurs. “I have all the time in the universe.” He carefully unhooks the Doctor's watch chain, tucks it into his waistcoat pocket, smooths the fabric down. “Yes,” he adds thoughtfully, “you do make a very nice present. You should dress up more often.”

“I suppose you had better make the most of it,” the Doctor allows, letting his hands wander as Jack starts on his buttons.

“In living, love; in loving, lose; in losing, hope; in hoping, truth,” Jack whispers. His every movement is careful, deliberate; rarely has the Doctor felt so _important_ before. With River, sometimes, which is a wrenching stab of pain. It's not over, it's not really ever over, but at the same time it was over before it started, for him, and he can't make himself follow that path all the way to the end. Taking a breath, the Doctor sets the pain aside. Right now, Jack. He can't decide whether he would rather distract Jack utterly, take him over and drown out the memory of waiting for his lover's death with those beautiful, desperate cries he lets the Doctor wring from him without reserve; or let him do as he wills, store away all the memories he can against the lonely years to come.

Instead of deciding, then, he asks, as his lover's hands slide warm beneath his open waistcoat: “What do you want, Jack?”

“ _Everything_ ,” Jack says intently, and the Doctor smiles. Some things never change.

“Anything in my power.”

Breath catching, Jack closes his eyes for a moment, swallows. “Never forget me,” he whispers, hands holding firm to the Doctor's waist, and the Doctor is suddenly conscious of all the empty space he is made of, a fragile structure of barely connected elementary particles that a breath of cosmic wind might disperse irretrievably.

“I never have,” he promises softly, sliding a hand up to caress his lover's cheek, slip around the back of his neck. “I never will.” Leaning forward, he watches Jack's eyes fall closed, breath hot against his skin, as he presses their lips together, coaxes Jack's mouth open with the tip of his tongue.

Jack sighs, and gradually relaxes under him until his head is laid back against the chair, hips twitching, quiet moans escaping as the Doctor becomes more aggressive in his efforts. His insecurity is a delightful change, dropping him toward surrender without conscious volition; after long habituation the Doctor finds his human lover a delight in any circumstance but it was this that first made him _desire_ , this possession of Jack’s eternal flame. He bites down on Jack’s lip and groans as his eyes fly open, dark and endless in the low light of the flat.

After a kiss to soothe his lip, the Doctor bites his chin as well, traces the line of his jaw with lips and tongue as Jack shivers beneath him. _Mine_ , he thinks, but doesn’t say, and slides his hand around to caress his lover's neck, press thumb against his throat - but Jack is tense again, breaths shallow and strained, and the Doctor realises that what has become a habitual caress with the man he knows must be less innocent to someone who has recently spent days hanging from the end of a rope. He snatches his hand away. “I’m sorry, I forgot, it wasn’t that long ago for you -”

But Jack catches his hand gently and kisses the palm, a brush of flame always ephemeral despite its timeless nature; sets it back against his neck. “Long enough,” he says, tilting his chin back up invitingly, defiantly. “Help me enjoy it again?”

Wedging a knee more firmly into the chair beside Jack's hip, the Doctor shifts forward; Jack's hands slide down to cup his arse and pull him closer. “I don't think you should trust me so much, yet,” he says, looking down into eyes filled, nonetheless, with trust. “I think that was later.”

“I think you just didn't notice,” Jack answers, still tense but smiling wryly; the Doctor has to admit the explanation is just as likely.

“You shouldn’t trust me so much,” he repeats softly, but Jack just closes his eyes and lays his head back against the chair again, throat exposed, swallowing tightly as the Doctor slowly draws a thumb down. Bending down to lick at the quick flicker of pulse in his lover’s neck, the Doctor presses a little harder with his thumb; the breathless moan this inspires leaves his trousers uncomfortably tight. The angle is terrible, as well. “Somewhere more comfortable?” he suggests, lips against Jack’s throat.

“Hmm,” Jack agrees, and squeezes the Doctor's arse before letting him back away. “Bedroom.” He just watches as the Doctor stands, though, gaze drifting aimlessly, drinking in the sight of him.

“Get up, Captain,” the Doctor directs, amused. “Your present is getting away.” Holding out a hand, Jack chuckles; the Doctor pulls him up, then divests him of his unnecessary shirt. As he tosses it away, the Doctor says, “Putting on a shirt in response to my arrival, definitely unexpected I'll admit.”

“I'll try to do better, in future.” Slipping his hands back under the Doctor's waistcoat, Jack pushes it off his shoulders and lets it fall, then takes hold of his braces and reels him in. The feel of him is somehow sharper, the deep settled stillness the Doctor has grown used to less developed; but Jack’s tongue in his mouth is just as glorious as ever.

\-----

It is a funny thing about this future Doctor, that he seems to enjoy touching Jack so much. Not at all how things have been, odd bursts of neediness the last time he had seen the Doctor notwithstanding; but perhaps, Jack wonders now, the way things could be?

Maybe he'll try a little harder, next time.

He is not having to try at all, today; the Doctor is melted against him, moaning deliciously as Jack kisses him. That _this_ should be real, after the terror and heartbreak and the sudden disintegration of everything Jack has lived in expectation of, beggars belief. That this should be not only a glimpse of a future he had never dared hope for, but the means of his deliverance from the hopeless hell of wage slavery he has been trapped in since he made the ill-advised descent into this gravity well, is nearly inconceivable. He hadn't really expected the Doctor to go along with his reflexive attempt to make things more comprehensible, but he _did_ , and now… why is he wasting time _thinking?_

If the Doctor is a present, he has been wrapped with meticulous care. The purple suits him, both on and coming off. In keeping with the unwrapping theme Jack unclips the ends of the purple braces carefully instead of simply sliding them down; he gives the back end a tug and the Doctor makes a startled noise as they slither off his shoulders. Grinning, Jack pulls their hips together and leans forward as the Doctor groans, uses his teeth to pull the ever-present bowtie loose as his supple body bends backward in Jack’s arms. He smells brisker than Jack remembers, somehow, as if he has been shaken up by a great wind; he laughs as if he loves life again. But a long time still, he said, for Jack.

“Very thorough,” the Doctor says as Jack straightens, pulling the tie with him. One eye opens to watch. “You know you don't have to seduce me?”

Spitting the tie to the floor, Jack chuckles, enjoying the play of alien musculature under his hands as the Doctor returns to upright as well. “I noticed. But I like to unwrap my presents carefully.”

His lover laughs. “No, you don't.”

Smiling wryly in acknowledgement, Jack amends, “I like to unwrap _you_ carefully.”

“Mostly true,” the Doctor agrees, and Jack wonders what counterexample he's remembering. His eye falls closed again as Jack recaptures his mouth but his fingers make quick work of button and zip and Jack gasps as his cock is ringed gently by finger and thumb. Thrusting into it without thought, he is caught by surprise as the Doctor drops to his knees.

“I thought, bedroom - _Doctor_!” Jack's knees nearly buckle as well.

“Hmm-mm,” says the Doctor decisively, which feels even _better_ , and the sight of him there, lips stretched around Jack's cock, gods have mercy - “Well, you had to get creative.” A shove, and Jack falls backwards into his recently vacated chair with a startled yelp.

“And what, you just can't resist?” He couldn't possibly count the number of advances the Doctor has swatted away like flies over the years. But here and now he is on his knees between Jack's legs, disheveled and half stripped; it almost seems believable and Jack so wants to believe.

The Doctor smiles up at him coquettishly, head bent, and Jack gives up making sense of his life. “I rarely try, anymore.” He is working Jack's trousers and pants down slowly, fingertips drawing teasing trails, leaning close so every puff of breath is another tantalizing suggestion. “Take your vest off, Jack, I want to see you,” he murmurs, his voice like honey coating all the jagged edges of Jack's heart. Breath caught in his throat, Jack pulls his vest off as quickly as he can; losing sight of the Doctor seems intolerable just now.

He reaches out tentatively, left hand carding through the dark spray of hair partially obscuring his lover's face. The Doctor leans into his touch and Jack's breath comes out in a strange choked noise. “Don't you know what you do to me?” he whispers, stricken. “Why are you doing this? You're just going to leave again.”

“I always will,” the Doctor agrees gravely, holding his gaze. “I can't be forever, Jack. I can't walk your path with you. But what I can do, I will. I'll keep coming back, for a very long time.” It doesn't sound like a promise; it sounds like a fact, and Jack needs facts to cling to in the creeping tragedy of his life, as everything else falls away.

“By all means, then - oh, you… _magnificent_ bastard,” Jack groans, with deep sincerity, as the Doctor lowers his head again, slowly enveloping Jack, that distinctive coolness always a bit startling but so welcome for what it means: no trick of memory this, no impossible fantasy, only here and now and real. The Doctor’s lips are smooth and firm, his tongue rubbing and flexing against Jack's cock as he sucks gently. He hums again as Jack moans inarticulately and slumps in the chair. There is something expansive building in him, a shockwave set off by a spark of hope, leaving behind a hollowness at the centre. What comes next he doesn't know. When the Doctor is gone he'll be alone again, and Jack isn't sure anything will be better for this reprieve. “You aren't kind,” he mumbles, watching with abstract appreciation the fall of his lover's hair, the line of shadow across his hollowed cheek. The Doctor is barely moving his head, nursing Jack along with tiny, precise movements of his tongue, one hand cupping Jack's balls possessively, the other slowly massaging his thigh. “I don’t think I’d know what to do if you were kind to me. Don't start now.”

The Doctor stills for a moment, taking a slow breath. Enervated and drifting, Jack doesn't move, or tense, or anticipate at all, simply waits. Then he shrieks, shudders convulsively, as the hand on his balls clenches and teeth scrape along his cock. He pushes reflexively at the Doctor's head, and he draws back. “No,” Jack gasps, “no, don't go.”

“I'm not kind,” the Doctor agrees, hand still squeezing Jack's balls painfully. “Or I won't be, if that's what you need. What do you need, Jack?”

“Uh,” Jack says, unable to think of anything sensible. A wash of cool breath and then the Doctor's tongue is back, probing delicately at the traitorously leaking head of his cock. Jack moans and tries to push forward, but the Doctor's hand tightens and he sobs in pain and frustration.

“Tell me, Jack.” Jack has never heard his voice like this before, warm and resonant and absolutely relentless, well oiled steel slipping easily through time-worn armor.

“F-fuck,” Jack stutters, grasping wildly for words, “you fucking sadistic alien bastard, you show up here, make me hope again, make it all hurt again -” The hand holding him captive loosens, and he sags back into the chair in relief. “Just to tell me you're leaving again, you're always going to be leaving, just to p-pretend you care, just a responsibility you can't shed, like some damn dog that just won't _die_.” He's crying now but it doesn't matter, a snivelling, cringing dog is no less owned. The Doctor stands, and Jack turns his face away, waiting for a blow that doesn't come.

When he looks up, the Doctor is watching him with an unreadable expression as he toes off his boots, finishes unbuttoning his shirt. “Fuck you,” Jack snarls, sitting forward, the hollow place inside erupting into blazing anger. “I don't know what you're doing but I'm not playing along. Fuck you and your self-righteous _responsibility_ , and you can take your pity fuck and sail it into the sun.” It feels wrong as he says it, though, because there is nothing of pity in the Doctor's face; somehow, that just makes him angrier.

“Oh, no,” the Time Lord breathes, “you can't get rid of me that easily,” and there go his trousers and damnit, he was _Jack's_ to unwrap -! Furious for no defensible reason, Jack throws himself to his feet but the Doctor steps to the side, sets a hand between his shoulder blades as he rises, and he's down on his hands and knees on the floor.

Jack closes his eyes. “Things were fine until you showed up.” Strong hands push at him, roll him over, then the Doctor is settling over him. “It's hell here but despair is pretty comfortable, once everything else is gone. All I had left was forever and waiting for you, and I couldn't want that when you'd be saying goodbye.” The Doctor is heavier than he looks; hands braced on Jack's biceps, straddling his waist with feet hooked over his thighs, Jack is pinned down, splayed out, broken open. Defenceless, against this man.

“It's not all you have.” Soft lips against his throat, hard cock pressed to his belly; Jack can't breathe. His heart is hammering far too fast, under the jaws of the only predator he fears. “‘There's a thread you follow. It goes among things that change. But it doesn't change.’” He's quoting something, Jack thinks, the silver of his tongue writing indelibly onto his skin. Worlds will fade and stars burn out, but Jack will endure, if mortal mind can be made to. “‘While you hold it, you can't get lost.’ Breathe, Jack.” He tries, but the air won't come. The Doctor's cheek is cool against his. “Breathe out, first.”

Feeling terrifyingly _visible_ , Jack breathes, wishing he could hide away behind the anger again, knowing he can't. The Doctor sets his elbows beside Jack's shoulders, freeing his arms, and makes a slow exploration of his face, familiar though it must be; tongue trailing around his ear, fleeting kisses at his temple, brow, the corners of his eyes. His hands curl protectively around Jack's head. “Shh, shh, listen,” he soothes, face against Jack's neck again. Jack opens his eyes, now that he won't have to face those eyes that see him too well, follows the cracks spreading through the ceiling. “‘Tragedies happen; people get hurt or die; and you suffer and get old. Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding. You don't ever let go of the thread.’”

A bark of unhappy laughter escapes Jack as he shakes his head, raises his hands to the Doctor's back. “You certainly deliver on _unkind_ , I'll give you that.”

The Doctor doesn't answer, but sets about distracting him with the skill of long familiarity. There is a set to his lips, a reverence to his touches, that Jack won't let himself think about, and his eyes, the murky brown of deep forest in the dim light, are always watching. With teeth and tongue, versatile fingertips, firm strokes of his palms and teasing nudges of his cock against Jack's, the Doctor soon has him incoherent again, moaning and bucking up against him. Even the touches on his neck are becoming part of it, no longer jarring; everything coming together in an anxious, ecstatic ball of knives in Jack's belly.

“Would you rather the bed?” the Doctor asks after the second time Jack's head comes down too hard on the floor.

“No.” It's better like this, raw and haphazard, balm to his soul and tribulation to his body. “But,” he gasps, after a shudder racks him as the Doctor reaches between their legs to take his aching balls in hand again. What the Doctor wants of him he doesn't know; what he wants… isn't this, isn't a one-sided ravaging by an amiable whirlwind. “Stop, please, stop.”

Letting go immediately, his lover settles himself on Jack's chest, arms crossed, and peers down at him attentively, which is a little surprising. Jack would have accepted it if he hadn't; he has no safe word with the Doctor, that's how they work. One corner of the Doctor's mouth is sliding upward as the silence stretches. “Well? Cat got your tongue? I've never known you to be shy on the topic of sex.”

“Fuck you,” Jack says reflexively, and the Doctor laughs.

“There's my Captain.” He reaches to the side and presses something into Jack's hand. Raising it to see, he finds a small packet of lube, like he used to carry in his own pocket. Where the Doctor procured it he can't guess; all Jack has had lately are quick encounters in dark alcoves, and rough has suited his mood. If the Doctor has started carrying them about… the future really is a different country.

“Where - nevermind, not important.” The Doctor's self-satisfied pleasure dims somewhat, as if Jack had denied him a treat. “Are you, would you… like that? Can I?” He couldn't have asked, probably, but if it's on offer… The feel of the Doctor's mouth around him comes back sharply and he stifles a groan.

“I like it very much,” his lover assures him, shuffling forward as Jack tugs lightly, hand sliding up lean thigh to arse already spread invitingly. The Doctor bends down to kiss him as Jack slicks his fingers, and as he pushes one finger slowly in he takes possession of that shockingly wanton mouth as well. Arching his back, the Doctor moans uninhibitedly, eyes screwed shut. It is starting to feel like a dream again, although somehow the dreams always skip the hair tickling his nose, getting into his eyes; he tries to tuck it behind the Doctor’s ear with his free hand to little avail. He presses another finger in, maybe a little too soon but the Doctor just takes a deep breath and pushes back against him, groaning as Jack’s fingers stretch him open, his head falling to Jack’s shoulder.

“I must be dreaming,” Jack mutters incautiously, and feels the Doctor shake his head. He moves his fingers then; the breathy moan that follows is safer than a reply. In hoping, truth; maybe so, but he's had enough of truth now and hope with it, wants this fantasy uninterrupted. Experimentally he crooks his fingers, searching carefully for what, in humans anyway -

“Jack!” the Doctor cries, as he collapses against Jack. “Yes, there, please -” He is making a slippery mess of Jack's chest, hips thrusting shallowly. It feels a little different, but Time Lords apparently have a perfectly serviceable analogue to a prostate. Trying to commit every moment to memory, Jack massages slowly, traces the outlines of ribs and shifting muscles with tongue and lips, the taste of his skin familiar in the midst of strangeness; cataloguing every twitch and gasp, every moaning plea that could never have come from the throat of the man Jack knows by the same name. “Jack, Jack… my light, my star -”

Suddenly desperate for him to _shut up_ , Jack hauls his head around, stops his mouth with his tongue, and pushes a third finger into his arse. The Doctor, entirely pliant to Jack's hands, sobs and rocks back and forth on his fingers; Jack lets him take his time. The universe is open to him again, with more of this waiting in some distant future, but that is no reason to rush even a second of _now_. Surely if there is a thread he is meant to hold to, it is the Doctor.

Whining piteously in his throat, the Doctor tries to pull away, but Jack doesn't let go until he sounds truly frantic, breath harsh through flared nostrils, back arching in an attempt to escape overwhelming stimulation. “Please,” he says as soon as his mouth is free, “please, Jack, do you want me to beg, oh gods, Rassilon, _please_ ,” but no, he doesn't, it will shatter every little lie Jack has been telling himself if he continues.

“Shut up,” Jack orders, and to his shock, the Doctor does, which is almost as bad. Slicking his cock, he watches as his lover eagerly shifts back, waits as he aligns himself, hands set on Jack's chest - and then, that ball of knives inside grown to pierce his heart, shoves the Doctor down hard, burying himself to the hilt in one violent thrust. All the anxious anticipation collapses into gasping pleasure and the stomach-turning feeling of violating something beautiful. The Doctor _yowls_ but it sounds more like a cat in heat than pain; he claws at Jack's chest and snarls down at him, dark eyes flashing, lips swollen and red around bared teeth. “Stop. Being. _Kind_ ,” Jack bites out. He pulls, pushes down again, groans under the weight of need he can't ignore any longer.

The snarl falls away as the Doctor raises himself slowly, and Jack's hips follow helplessly. If this is the end, if the Doctor leaves him like this, he's going to scream, he's going to lose his _mind_ if it hasn't already gone, because he can't think of anything but the feel of the Doctor's arse tight around his cock and he needs it again, needs more than the torturous inch the Doctor is allowing him. It is painfully obvious that every bit of control Jack thought he had here was a gift, taken back as easily. Broken sounds stagger from his throat as the Doctor's hands drift over the marks on his chest, rubbing and stroking; the pain is good, it's what Jack wants, something to cut through the whirling confusion inside. Face solemn, eyes warmed by more than Jack can think about right now, the Doctor stares down as he slides a hand heavily, inexorably, toward Jack's neck.

Too far gone to feel fear, Jack swallows, tilts his chin up, lays still; he closes his eyes and shivers as he feels a thumb run lightly along his windpipe.

“No,” the Doctor whispers, and it takes Jack precious seconds to recall what he is responding to. When he does, it is too late to protest; the Doctor is already settling into a slow rhythm, one arm braced beside Jack's shoulder, the other folded against his chest, hand caressing his neck. It feels inevitable, as if he had chosen to fight a brick wall and now here he lies with it collapsed atop him, winner or loser but certainly in his proper place. Jack sighs, feels cool breath and soft lips press briefly to his collarbone. “‘Has it terrors, they are our terrors,’” his lover says quietly, voice strained. “‘Has it abysses, those abysses belong to us; are dangers at hand, we must try to love them.’”

And Jack does, loves this danger fit to break his heart. Settling his hands on the Doctor's hips, he makes no further attempt to direct, lets himself be swept along. Cool fingers pressing against his neck, seeking the beat of his pulse, probing at the hinge of his jaw; smooth palm under his chin, sliding down to tighten briefly, and all the while the Doctor keeps his maddening rhythm. Jack moans, a slow shudder making its way down his body to culminate in a thrust of his hips that drives a glorious bright noise from his lover, a slightly faster motion. “Jack,” the Doctor moans, high and breathy, “Jack.” He says no more but lets his head fall, leaves Jack's neck to set both arms as trembling supports. He is denying himself waiting for Jack, all his considerable willpower bent to the effort; the thought is nearly enough to tip Jack over the edge.

“Faster, please,” he begs, and the Doctor sobs but complies, gasping harshly. Jack’s orgasm is building inside him like the tide and he can’t hurry it at all. He shifts his hips but the change in angle is too much for the Doctor; curling forward with a long, gasping groan, he freezes, head pressed to Jack’s shoulder, arse clenching around Jack’s cock as he shudders. Digging fingers into his hips to hold him steady, Jack thrusts raggedly up into him. “Fuck, oh please, don't stop now -” Finally the wave crests, and Jack follows him down, tumbled about and emptied out and relieved to find himself flat on his back because that’s where he’d be headed in any case. He strokes his lover's back gently, rests a hand on the back of his neck. “Doctor?”

The Doctor laughs giddily, and sags down bonelessly to lay against Jack. “You'd think, after all this time,” he mumbles. “But it's always new with you, Jack.” He nuzzles around until his lips find Jack's for a soft kiss, then he is pushing himself up and off of Jack. “I need a shower. Do you have a shower?”

Jack nods, missing him already. “Strictly single occupancy; it's tiny.” It will keep him here for a little longer, though.

“I'll be quick.” After another kiss the Doctor hops to his feet. Alien indeed.

“Don't worry,” Jack mumbles. “I'm not going anywhere.” He is not quite asleep when the Doctor returns, clean but still delightfully unwrapped. He insists on Jack taking a shower too, and Jack more than half expects him to be gone when he opens the door; but instead he is burrowed under the covers in Jack's bed, blinking sleepily. Refusing adamantly to think, or anticipate, or worry, or _anything_ , Jack crawls in as well, wraps the Doctor in his arms, and takes an absurdly long time to fall asleep.

When he wakes, the Doctor is still there, snoring quietly in his ear. For a few shining moments, Jack doesn’t move at all; then he carefully extracts himself, gathers what little he cares to own, and flees before the Doctor can leave him again.

-+-+-+-

 

**Author's Note:**

> _You'll see the beginning bit again, in another installment._   
>    
>  _The Doctor quotes from The Way It Is, by William Stafford, and Fear of the Inexplicable, by Rainer Maria Rilke._


End file.
